Providing name, role, state, and value information for all form components
enables compatibility with assistive technology, such as screen readers,
screen magnifiers, and speech recognition software used by people with
disabilities.

The PDF specification defines how name, role, and value are set for
form controls in Section 12.7.4 (Field Types) of PDF
1.7 (ISO 32000-1), as shown in the following table. The Comments column explains how Adobe Acrobat Pro displays the corresponding information.

Interactive Form Dictionary Entries

Used to Define

Comments

FT

Role

Controls that share field type also use field flags to set
the appropriate role. In Adobe Acrobat the role for form controls
is set automatically.

TU

Name

In Adobe Acrobat the TU entry value is provided via the Tooltip
field in the form control's Properties dialog. This should
not be confused with the T entry which is defined as the Name
in Acrobat's form control properties dialog - the name field
in the Properties dialog is not used to provide the name for
a control when read by assistive technologies.

CA

Name (Pushbuttons only)

In Adobe Acrobat the CA entry value is provided via the label
field in the form control's Properties dialog.

V

Value

The Value entry is set by the user interacting with the control,
where a value is needed.

DV

Default Value

In Adobe Acrobat the DV entry value can be set in the form
control's Properties dialog.

The following table describes how the role, name, value, and state
are defined for PDF form controls created using Adobe Acrobat Pro.
Adobe LiveCycle Designer provides the same controls as well as several
additional ones: see Example 2 below.

PDF form element

Role (FT entry)

Name (TU entry)

Value (V entry)

Configurable States

Text field

Text
/Tx

Tooltip

Default value (DV entry in field dictionary) can be set in
the Properties dialog. Value is entered by user.

Read Only, Required, Multiline, Password

Check box

Check box
/Btn

Tooltip

V entry is set to 'Yes' or 'No' depending on Checked state.

Read Only, Required, Checked

Radio button

Radio button
/Btn (Field Flag set to 'Radio')

Tooltip

V entry is set to 'Yes' or 'No' depending on Checked state.

Read Only, Required, Checked

Combo box

Combo box
/Ch (Field Flag set to 'Combo')

Tooltip

Default value (/DV) can be set in the Properties dialog.
Value is determined by user selection.

Read Only, Required

List box

Drop-down list
/Ch

Tooltip

Default value (/DV) can be set in the Properties dialog.
Value is determined by user selection.

Read Only, Required

Button

Push button
/Btn (Field Flag set to 'Pushbutton')

Label (CA entry instead of TU entry)

Push buttons do not have or require a value.

Read Only, Required

Signature field

Text
/Sig

Tooltip

Default value (DV entry in field dictionary) can be set in
the Properties dialog. Value is entered by user.

Read Only, Required

Examples

Example 1: Specifying name, role, value and/or state for a form field
using Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro

This example uses a check box for illustration; the procedure is the
same for other form controls. In Form Editing mode:

Access the context menu for the form field you are creating or
modifying.

Select the Properties... dialog for the form field.

Specify the name by adding a value to the tool tip field. This
will used by the accessibility API as the Name for the control and
should usually be set to match the text used as a visual label for
the control.

Select the Options tab.

Specify the default value and the default state, if appropriate.

The image below shows the Check Box Properties dialog, open in the
General tab. (The Name field in the dialog is not needed for accessibility.)

The image below shows the Check Box Properties dialog, open in the
Options tab.

Tests

Procedure

For the form control, verify that name, role, and value/state
are specified by one of the following:

Use a screen reader to navigate to the form control and check
that it can be activated or that its value can be changed. Verify
that the name (tooltip) and role are announced.

Use a tool capable of showing the form field information to open the PDF document and verify that the form control has the correct name, role, value, and state (if appropriate) information.

Use a tool that exposes the document through the accessibility
API, and verify that the form control has the correct name, role,
value, and state (if appropriate) information.

Expected Results

#1 is true.

If this is a sufficient technique for a success criterion, failing this test procedure does not necessarily mean that the success criterion has not been satisfied in some other way, only that this technique has not been successfully implemented and can not be used to claim conformance.